Co-pending patent application Ser. No. 10/923,867, incorporated herein as if set forth in full herein, discusses, among other things, methods and devices for reducing the cost of updating an operations support system (OSS) by using a mediation unit. The mediation units discussed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/923,867, among other things, transform or convert (collectively referred to as “transform”) so-called meta-data from one or more network elements (NEs), into one or more forms of normalized, meta-data which can be recognized by one or more OSSs (e.g., Performance OSS, Provisioning OSS, Assurance OSS, Fault OSS, Accounting OSS, Security OSS, etc., to name just a few). One of the advantages provided by the mediation units discussed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/923,867 is that only a single mediation unit is required to transform changes made by any number of NEs into normalized meta-data which may be recognized by an OSS. The use of such a mediation unit greatly reduces the cost of updating an OSS each time there is a change to any number of different NEs.
Because each NE may be made by a different vendor, each NE's meta-data may be based on a different management information model (MIM) or management information based (MIB) model. To carry out transformations, the mediation unit must, therefore, generate, receive or have access to, a number of different models. The mediation unit must have access to transformation models which are used to transform vendor-specific meta-data or related definitions associated with a particular NE and network management system models (synonymously referred herein as normalized models) associated with a particular OSS, such as those OSSs disclosed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/923,798, incorporated herein as if set forth in full herein.
Though it may generate these models itself, it is more desirable to have the mediation unit receive these models from another component (e.g., program, device, etc.).
Another challenge presented by the use of mediation units disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 10/923,798 and 10/923,867 is tracking changes made to models as new versions of these models are implemented. It is also desirable to analyze the differences between one version of a model and a subsequent or preceding version in order to identify similarities, inconsistencies or areas which require fixes to be made by software engineers or the like (collectively referred to herein as “version control”).
Besides version control (sometimes referred to as “life cycle management”), it is also desirable to generate new or modified network element models in a cost-effective manner.
It is desirable, therefore, to provide devices and related methods that can carry out version control and be used to develop new network element models in a cost-effective manner.